


Grey's Daughter

by Warp5Complex_Archivist



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-05
Updated: 2006-03-05
Packaged: 2018-08-16 00:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8080213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warp5Complex_Archivist/pseuds/Warp5Complex_Archivist
Summary: First contact, and last. (04/13/2003)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

  
Author's notes: his is an AU and Deathfic, and a companion piece to 'Bound.' I said I'd be good, but some listsibs wanted a sequel, and the dark bunnies started biting. I didn't realize quite how dark until I started writing. ReginaBellatrix is indeed right: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Many thanks again to Black Goddess, because she actually read 'Bound,' and sent me some wonderful pictures that are similar to what these centaur people look like. Considering I know how much she hates deathfic, her enthusiasm is very much appreciated.  
  
Many thanks, as usual, to my beleaguered betas, Squeakylightfoot and Kageygirl, for their willingness to plumb the depths with me to help make these sad stories as fine as possible. To quote one of my favorite writers: you both rock beyond the telling.  


* * *

I dreamed of my mother, though it had been years since she died. She was standing white as the snow around her, smiling and reaching for me with all four of her hands.

I went to her, of course, and she clasped me to her, tugged my ear in greeting.

"Why are you here?" I asked, and then I saw she was wearing five bracelets, not four: five circles of gray and black stones. Two were for her parents, two for her brothers, all dead years before. The last one was new, and she smiled so sadly when I saw it.

"Your father," she said. She kissed my ear, took two of my hands in her own. "It won't be long," she said, "my poor, brave daughter. It won't be long."

And I wake because my small brother is prodding me, kicking me gently with a fore-hoof. One look at his face and I'm sure our father is dead.

"What is it?" I ask him, groggy from sleep, terrified from my dream, prepared to be forced into grieving. "Why aren't you with the watch?"

"We. saw something," he says. His ears are twitching with excitement and maybe fear. "We saw something big, with lights, falling from the sky."

I rub my eyes quickly, trying to clear the sleep from them. "Is our father all right?"

My brother looks at me, perplexed. "He's sleeping."

"So why are you here, then? Why not wake him?" My words sound too much like my dream, and for a moment it makes me afraid.

But my small brother only smiles, sweet face open with mischief and guilt. "He wouldn't let me go see."

"Ah," I'm getting to my hooves, finally awake now, the anguish, the fear of the dream fading. "And I will?"

His round, hopeful eyes meet mine, ears flipping back and forth comically. "Of course you will! Won't you?" He takes one of my hands, turns and begins tugging me towards the entrance of the hut we share. "It's just a thing with lights. It's not dangerous."

"Then why do you want to see it?"

He looks at me sharply, caught, then grins. "It's not far, and I know where the lights fell. I can show you the way."

I tug his ear because he knows he is being bad and his shamelessness amuses me. He swats at my hand, but doesn't stop smiling. "And who will replace you on the watch, while we are going to see these lights?"

"There are enough," he says, and for a moment his smile falters; he is not truly needed on the watch and he knows it, merely learning. His voice is quieter when he speaks, embarrassed now. "The others said I could go."

"Then we'll go," I tell him quickly, wanting to see him smile again. His fur is the same white as our mother, and he shares her features and eyes. The light in them when he smiles makes me think of my dream.

Maybe I was just missing her tonight. And our father is becoming old. I already know the world will not keep him much longer.

So maybe the dream means nothing.

* * *

It is cold tonight, unpleasant after the hut and the village, and I flex my fingers as I walk to keep them warm. My small brother bounds along, often pulling ahead, only to slow and drop back. He is scowling with impatience and I smile.

"Life will not last longer for rushing through it," I tell him. It is something our father says often, especially to him.

My brother just looks at me sourly. "You aren't the keeper yet," he says, then trots ahead again, leaping over the snow, because he knows he's being churlish and doesn't want to hear me tell him.

"Be glad I'm not!" I shout after him. And I am glad, and he should be, too; when I am the keeper, our father will be dead.

"I am!" he hollers back. He's all smiles again, anger forgotten. He points with his two right arms; if I squint I can just make out a shape on the snow, glinting under the stars. "There," he says, "that's it."

* * *

It is unlike anything I have ever seen before.

I think it is metal—I have seen metal before. Some of the villagers to the south have brought arrowheads and jewelry made of it to trade. I think one of the watch has a metal knife.

But this, this is enormous, impossible. Both my brother and I could fit in there, if not comfortably; I didn't think there was this much metal in all the world.

And the lights. When my small brother told me he followed lights in the sky, I had thought—I don't know what I'd thought. Fires, maybe. Nothing like this. The metal thing has lights on the side of it. Some are extinguished, but one at least is still blazing. I don't know how the fire survives behind that covering.

"Stop that!" I shout—my brother is going to touch it. "You'll be burned."

He looks at me, presses his palm to the bright circle, grinning. "It's barely warm." His hand makes a long shadow on the snow. Then his eyes go wide and for a moment I'm terrified he's actually been burned. But "Do you hear that?" is what he says.

And the next instant I can hear it too: thumping, a scraping noise. "It's coming from inside."

My brother dances back from the strange metal and the light. He looks at me and his ears are flicking madly with fear. "What is it?" he asks, as if I could somehow know.

And now, now I realize that we don't have a spear between us. Not even a torch, because the moon is so bright tonight. The watch sent my brother to get our father, to tell them if the falling lights were an omen. They have no idea that he woke me instead, that we're out here alone. Will probably not even guess for hours, not until dawn.

The noise again. Louder. Something is inside, definitely moving.

We are both backing away from the metal thing now, legs stiff, ready to leap and turn and run. "Stay behind me," I tell him. At least I can kick.

A part of the metal thing opens, like the maw of a giant animal. "Run!" I shout, despite my terror, and I rear up, ready to kick. Behind me my small brother screams. I hope he listened and is running; I can't spare the time to look.

Something small and blue falls out into the snow. It doesn't react to me, not even ducking as it slips just under my flailing hooves. I jump back on my hind legs, out of reflex, then I lose my balance and have to come down on all four legs again. The thing in the snow hasn't moved. The black mouth behind it does nothing.

"Soul of my mother preserve me!" my brother whispers behind me. Normally I'd bite his ear for swearing like that.

But just then the thing in the snow moves. Pushes up on its forelegs like a foal trying to rise. It has a face: eyes nose and mouth, just like we do. Hair on the head—I can't tell the color in the dim light. Can't tell the color of the eyes either. But the skin, the skin is very white.

The creature rolls onto its side, and it's shaking. Maybe it's sick.

"It's an animal," my brother says. He looks from the trembling creature to the metal thing. "Is that its hut?"

"Animals don't have huts," I snap at him. "They have dens."

"Dens that fall from the sky?"

"I don't know," I say. I'm speaking too harshly, my fear showing as anger. Our father would pull my ear for that and I try to swallow it all down. I bite the heel of my hand, thinking, trying to decide what to do. All the while the creature shakes in the snow.

"It's crying," my brother says, and he's right: the creature is making little noises, not really cries, but I still recognize them. The animal is in pain.

My brother's eyes are huge as he watches me kneel and pick the animal up, but the creature has done nothing except shake, and he is more curious now than afraid. It takes a moment for me to find a good way to hold the creature—the limbs don't bend the way I expect them to— but I try to be gentle and finally the animal is secure in all my arms. I'm shocked at how cold it is: there is ice in its hair.

It makes a noise then and I almost drop it, but when I look down at its face all I see is cold and pain and fear. "It's all right," I murmur to it, making my voice soothing, "it's all right now. Everything will be fine."

My brother bends over the animal's face, then touches his palm to the white skin. "It's so cold!" He asks, looking at me, "How can anything live and be that cold?"

"I don't know," I tell him, but I hold the animal a little tighter, trying to make it warm. Then we both hear another noise from inside the metal den thing and I nearly drop the poor creature for a second time.

My brother looks at me, wild-eyed. "There's more!"

I look down at the animal in my arms, wondering how many more of them there are, if the others are less hurt, more dangerous. But the creature's face is almost like a person, and I know we can't just leave them. "Here," I say, and hand the animal to my brother. "Take it—I'll get the other ones."

My brother takes it warily, quickly shifts the creature so that it's lying across his back. He uses his two lower arms to hold it steady. Not so kind, perhaps, but certainly not stupid. He backs away from the metal thing, watching me as I go right up to it.

Now I really wish I had thought to bring a torch. The inside of the metal den is completely black. I can hear something but I can't see anything more than shadows. But something, something is moving. Crawling? Is this how the animals move?

Something comes at me, in the dark, and I rear and kick and scream faster than I can think about it. My brother screams behind me, and my hooves hit something solid, and then it's gone, and the new scream I hear is a howl of pain from an animal I have just hurt, maybe killed.

I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. I bite my palm until it hurts, willing my hearts to slow, to calm. I hurt an animal. I hurt an animal. I didn't mean to.

Finally I can breathe normally again. There has been no sound from inside the metal for a long time. My brother is still standing behind me, rigid, the other animal lying still and silent across his back.

If I lean over very far I can duck under the solid metal flap and reach into the den. It is so dark and I imagine the animal flying at me, clawing out my eyes, but there is nothing. No sound in the black. Then my fingers touch something cold and solid and resilient, and my hearts jump, but I force myself to stay and take it gently and pull. I won't hurt it again. I swear by the soul of my mother that I won't ever hurt it again.

This one has darker hair on the head, but the same white face and strange blue on the skin. It is cold and limp and there is blood in its mouth. In the extraordinary metal light I can clearly see the imprint of my right front hoof. I did that: the blood is because of me.

Well, maybe not. Maybe the blood was there already. Maybe it was already hurt when it fell from the sky.

I carry the creature away from the metal, holding it more gently than I have held anything save my brother when he was a tiny foal. Its head lolls against my shoulder, still and cold. More blood comes from the mouth.

"We need to take them to the healer," I say, and I start trotting back towards the village, moving as quickly as I dare. "The healer will know what to do."

"You killed it," my brother says, behind me. His voice is stricken.

I say nothing, but I know he's right.

* * *

"It's an animal," the healer says. She's looking down at the dark- haired creature, the one I kicked. Her lower hands clutch the fur on her back; her upper hands are pulling worriedly thorough her hair. It's been a full three days and he—he is a male—hasn't awoken. "I told you: I don't know what to do for animals." She looks at me helplessly, clasping her lower hands. "His bones are all wrong; everything's in the wrong place. I don't know what to do."

I rub my mouth with my palm. The guilt is so heavy it's like a sickness, like I've swallowed stones. "I didn't mean to break him," I tell her. "But. but they're not so different from us, are they?" I ask hopefully, desperately. "He'll take water, I've seen it. So that means he can get better, right?" Her look is pitying, but I can't help myself and I don't stop. "It was just one kick, only one hoof. isn't there anything you can do? Isn't there anything?"

She just tugs my ear. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry."

I look over my shoulder to the back of the healer's hut, where the other animal is. Another male. He is sitting with his back pressed against the felt wall, his two legs pulled up and his two arms wrapped around them. He is watching us both and his eyes are full of pain.

"You splinted his leg," I say to the healer. "He doesn't have hooves, but you found his ankle anyway. You fixed it." I know I'm not being fair. It's not her fault the other creature is dying; she is doing everything she can.

She also looks back at the other animal, gives him a tentative smile. She looks back at me. "Limb breaks are simple," she says. She gestures down at the brown-haired one. Almost his whole chest is dark purple with bruising; where my hoof hit is an obvious dent. I can't bear to look at it. "I didn't even know that blue was a covering," she says. "When it first came off I thought I was flaying him alive." She shudders at the memory. "I can only hear one heart, and I'm not sure where it is. I don't know if his lungs are hurt, or how badly." Her upper hands go back to her hair again. "I can try draining the blood again, from his chest. Maybe that will do something. Relieve the pressure, maybe; help him breathe."

"Maybe." It seems like so little. I look back at the other animal. "I wish he could tell us."

The healer looks at him too. "He makes a lot of noises," she says, "but it's like birdsong; I don't think it means anything. Not to people, anyway." She taps her chest absently. "He keeps doing this, making a noise. I don't know what it means."

I press my fingers to my chest as well, feeling the flat planes of the bones. "Maybe he's trying to tell us about his companion, about how to fix him."

The light-haired creature perked up when he saw the healer's gesture. His eyes are alert and bright. He says something, and it's like if I just try hard enough, I could understand.

I step towards him, carefully, and he moves back, pressing himself more tightly against the wall. He is so much smaller, I realize, no wonder he's afraid. So I kneel, lowering myself slowly to the dirt floor, then fold my hind legs so I'm completely sitting. Maybe this way I'll seem smaller; he won't be so afraid.

I finger my mother's bracelet, feeling the smooth warmth of the stones. I wish she were with me now. I wish I could ask her what to do.

The animal's eyes set on the bracelet, and he watches.

What I do next is stupid, because he's an animal and there's no way he can understand. But I hold my wrist out to him, showing him the bracelet. With another hand I point to the stones.

"Soul," I say to him. "This is the soul of my mother."

He looks at me, then looks at the bracelet, and I realize I'm holding my breath when he finally reaches out with one of his only two hands.

"Soul," he says, distinctly and clearly as he touches the bracelet. "Soul," he says again, and his eyes are bright blue and intelligent and looking directly into mine.

And he is not an animal. Not an animal at all.

Soul of my mother preserve me. What have I done?

* * *

The healer and I stand outside her hut, waiting for my father. The healer fidgets—she reminds me of my small brother—and she fingers the two bracelets on her arm. My father has exact copies of those bracelets, two among many. One day my arms will also be weighed down, arms full of souls. It seems we have been there for hours, breathing frost into the cold morning air.

Finally, the entrance flap is pushed aside, and my father comes smiling and squinting into the daylight. He reaches for the healer and gives her a gentle tug on her ear. She smiles, ducks her head. She seems happy to be able to escape back into her hut.

The gaze my father gives me is a little less kind. "Come," he says, "let's walk." And I follow him.

* * *

"He will not survive," my father says when we are beyond the windbreak. He means the small, two-legged person, the one I kicked. He looks at me, face grave. "You already know this."

I do, and the knowledge makes me want to fall in the snow and never move again. It is agony to look my father in the eye. "Maybe a day more," I tell him, "not longer."

My father nods. "I will ask the woodcutters if they have enough to spare for a travois and a platform." He sighs, and his bracelets rattle, and suddenly he seems so very old and I am reminded of my dream. I imagine making his bracelet, calling the dead at his funeral, and I ball my lower fists into the fur on my back. My father raises his upper arm, shaking the bracelets slightly. "Always room for more," he says. It is an old joke, the sad joke of the keepers. Death always has room for more.

"It's my fault," I tell him.

He just looks at me a long time, as if studying my face. Finally, he nods again, slowly and sad. "You weren't trying to kill."

"No!" I say immediately, but then I remember that night, the darkness inside the metal thing. "But I was trying to hurt. I thought he was attacking me. I was afraid."

"Your brother told me you were trying to protect him," my father says. He reaches out and tugs my ear. "His soul understands."

He means the soul of the stranger, dying in the healer's hut. "How do you know?" I ask him, and my voice is harsh and whispery with anguish. "He isn't like us. He won't ever learn our language. How do you know his soul understands?"

My father pulls me close, kisses my ear. "My poor, brave daughter," he says, "my soul's keeper after me. The soul always understands. The soul always understands."

* * *

"He told me his people are coming, in two more days."

"Will his companion live until then?"

"No."

I am in my father's hut. We are sitting together on the floor, choosing stones.

"Does he understand?"

"No," I say again. I reach for a gray stone, but when my fingers touch it I hesitate. Instead I choose the one beside it. It's a little smaller, slightly rough under my fingertips. Somehow it reminds me of the one who is dying. I pick it up and thread it onto the leather.

My father watches me closely. "That one is almost done," he says.

I nod. The person it will be for has much thinner wrists; more stones will make it difficult for him to wear. "I told him he had to let him die, but he refused."

My father grunts noncommittally, pushes a black stone towards me, out of the pile. "Try that one." I nod and thread it to the others, then begin tying the knots in the leather. "Why did he refuse?"

I sigh. "He told me he'll live, that I was wrong. That when his friends take them home, they'll be able to heal him." Heal what I did.

"He can't choose his time to die."

"I know," I say, and I can hear the bitterness in my own voice. "I chose it for him." And I have to close my eyes against the memory: the sickening thud of my hoof against flesh, too-thin bone.

"Did it ever occur to you," my father asks quietly, fingers gliding over the stones, "that it is his time to die? That maybe that's why you were there?" He looks at me, eyes pinning the response in my mouth. "Maybe this was something that was forced on both of you?"

My hand clenches around a fistful of stones and I can feel them press painfully into my palm. "He didn't fall here just to die," I say, and my ears go flat to my skull in anger, and I remember what the stranger said before, the words he used: so full of anguish and fury, words I didn't understand.

"Maybe he did," my father says, his voice just as quiet, just as calm. "Maybe he did because this is where he _has_ to die."

I grip the stones as if I could crush them in my hand. "He wouldn't be dying at all if it weren't for me."

"Yes," my father says, "but maybe, if it weren't for you, his soul would never be freed, either. Maybe you and he are here because his companion won't unbind him, and you can."

I just gape at him like a child. "But I'm not the keeper of the dead yet. And I don't love him."

My father just tugs on my ear. "If you felt no love at all, why would you care what happens to him?"

* * *

I am holding the stranger, to keep his frail body warm. On the pyre, the body of his companion burns.

He refused to release his soul, refused to let him die. So I must do it. Now it is up to me.

I have to love him; love the dead enough to let him go. I didn't even know him. Our only connection was violence: my violence, my guilt, my sorrow, my shame.

And yet.

I am holding his companion tight against my body, my arms wrapped around him to keep him warm. I don't want him to be cold; I don't want him to die. I don't want him to be hurt anymore, to come to any more harm.

And I never wanted his companion to be hurt. I would give anything to take that one moment, that single hoof-blow back.

I don't want his soul to be trapped in his body. I want to free him. I don't want his soul to burn.

Isn't that love? A kind of love? Isn't that enough?

It has to be. It's all I can do for him. It's the only thing left that I can do.

"I am letting you die," I say quietly, in my own language. "I free you; your soul is unbound." For some reason, I am shaking.

"He will burn," I say to the stranger, in his language, "he will burn," because I want him to say the words as well, to release his companion. Because I don't know if I managed it, and I'm so afraid I failed. I can't see anything amongst the flames.

But he says nothing, and I can't stop trembling.

* * *

I can see my small brother easily by the torch he carries, though the moon is so bright tonight he hardly needs it. I kick through the snow as loudly as I can as I approach, so I don't startle him.

He turns and smiles. "Come to keep me company?"

"I can't sleep." I say as I reach out and tug his ear. Then we just stand together silently, looking out into the moonlit darkness.

"I'm sorry," he says after a long while. He takes one of my hands in his.

"What for?"

"That he's dead," my brother says. "I keep thinking. maybe if I hadn't woken you, if we hadn't gone to see that flying thing with the lights, maybe he wouldn't have died."

"Maybe," I answer, "but you saw them, how fragile they are. Their metal hut wasn't protecting them; the cold would have killed them both if we hadn't come."

"I'm still sorry," my brother says. He looks at me, eyes sad. "I wish I had done better. I wish I hadn't been afraid." He looks down at the snow, kicks at it with a fore-hoof. "There was no reason to be afraid."

"I was frightened, too," I remind him, "and I was the one who killed, you did nothing."

"I didn't stop you," he says quietly. "I was scared. I was glad you attacked." He kicks the snow harder. "I should have stopped you. I wish I had."

I tug his ear again; make him look at me. "I thought you were very brave."

He just smiles, but it is slight and sad.

Then we both turn because the other villager on the watch is running up to us, galloping fast through the knee-deep snow. He nods in greeting, but his ears are flicking back and forth, his deep brown sides heaving as he breathes.

"The stranger," he says, "I saw him leaving the windbreak." He takes a deep breath, still winded from his run. "I didn't—didn't think it was bad, but the healer found me just now, asking if I had seen him. She said you would know where to find him." His expression is eloquent with misery and shame. "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't know he wasn't meant to leave."

I can see my small brother tense with anger, and I touch his ear as I speak to make sure he does not. "It's all right," I tell him. "No one told you. But we have to find him—he won't live in this cold." He's surprised at this, and I don't blame him, but there's no time to tell him how I know. "Did you see which way he went?"

He nods, and I let out a tiny breath in relief. "Towards the pyre," he says. "He was following in the tracks from yesterday."

"Thank you," I say. "Please tell the healer that we'll go find him." And I grab my brother's hand and we run.

* * *

"Look!" My brother stops for just an instant, pointing at the sky.

I look up as well, still running. More lights, gliding like a giant bird through the darkness. For a moment I can only gape; it is both terrifying and beautiful.

His people have come, just as he said. Too late for one, hopefully not for the other.

I force myself to stop, to turn around so my brother can see me. "Go back to the village," I tell him. "Get our father. Let him know the other strangers have come."

"But—!" He looks at me, glances back the way we came.

"Do it," I order him. "This is important; our father must know." I smile quickly for him and then I've turned and started running. "Go!" I shout over my shoulder, and I'm relieved to see him wheel on his back legs and run in the other direction.

It isn't long before I reach the remains of the pyre. The stranger is lying there on his back, among the ashes. His arms are spread out like he would embrace the sky; I wonder if he saw the lights of the other strangers passing.

I wonder if he's dead, if the cold was already enough to kill him, and I have to force myself to go to him, to gather him up in my arms.

He is so very cold, but he gasps when I hold him and I am so grateful that he is alive. I hold both of his small hands in one of mine. They feel like ice and he gasps again in pain. But he will be warm again, so it will be all right.

"You cannot die now," I say to him as I turn start running with him back to the village, "I won't let you; it's not your time." And I lean down and bite his ear, as if he were my small brother. I have no right, but it doesn't matter, I don't care. I'm so angry with him for doing this; so glad he's still alive.

Then he suddenly goes tense, tries to shout, telling me to turn around. I don't; he's too cold, I have to bring him back to the village, have to get him warm.

And if I don't look, then I won't see that there's nothing there, that I wasn't able to free his companion's soul, that I failed. That I've killed him twice.

It's cowardly; I know it is. But I couldn't bear it. I just couldn't bear it.

* * *

"He's leaving today."

My father looks up at me from where he is tracing a pattern in the snow. He smiles.

"You'll miss him?"

"Yes."

He shakes his head. "Two-armed, two-legged people who come from the sky," he says. "The world is full of wondrous things. I am so fortunate I lived to see it."

I was staring at the snow, at what he has written there, but then I realize what his words mean and my eyes snap back up to his face. His eyes, his eyes tell me everything.

"Daughter," he says, and his voice is heavy and sad and kind. He gently tugs my ear. "This can't surprise you."

"No," I whisper, admitting it. "I had a dream," I tell him, "the night the strangers came. My mother came to me. She told me." Even now, it is almost impossible to say it. The words make it real. "She told me she had come for you."

My father just nods. He takes my hand, and his bracelets rattle as he places my palm against his right foreleg, just behind the shoulder. I can feel the lump there, under his skin. I want to pull my hand away but he won't let me. He presses my hand to him, to the death inside him, making sure I recognize it. I bite down on the heel of my upper right hand.

"The healer says three, maybe four more cycles of the moon," he says.

I swallow, take my hand from my mouth, but I can only nod; I am in too much pain to speak. I just pull him to me, kiss his ear, feel his arms around me, the warm weight of his bracelets. He seems the same as he always has been: healthy and solid and strong.

"My daughter," he says, and he kisses my ear. "My brave daughter. Keeper after me."

I step back, and I find I can speak again. But it hurts; oh it hurts. "Does my small brother know?"

My father shakes his head. "There will be time enough to tell him."

I nod again, thinking of the word in the snow, having a second bracelet on my arm, the weight of all the ones that will come after.

The newest bracelet on my father's wrist: it is more brightly colored, easy to see against all the other bracelets. I reach out and take it between my fingers.

My father follows my hand with his eyes. "They will never come back here," he says. It is not a question.

I look at him, at his eyes, and I know what he wants from me: I will be the next keeper; the decision has to be mine.

"I want to give the stranger the soul bracelet," I say to my father. "If he never comes back here, it is only right that he should be the one to keep it; maybe he will be able to speak to his dead."

"Maybe he will," my father nods, and he smiles. He holds up his arm so I can remove the stranger's bracelet.

"I'll come by your hut later," I say. He nods absently, but he is looking back down at the word in the snow, preparing to call the dead. My lingering will only disturb him. "Give my mother my greetings," I tell him, then I turn and go.

One day soon it will be his name I write there; only the dead have names.

* * *

His people have brought thicker coverings for him, and finally he looks almost warm enough, though we are standing outside far beyond the protection of the windbreak. Still, I want to touch his face, take his strange white hands, make sure he is all right.

The metal craft—it's like a travois, he said, one that floats through the air—is waiting for him, with other members of his village inside. He is going home.

"This is for you," I say, using his language. I hold out the soul bracelet for his companion.

He takes it slowly, looks at me. "This is the keeper's bracelet," he says, and I can tell he doesn't understand.

"It's yours now," I explain, "so you can speak to your dead." I press his fingers around it; suddenly worried he might drop it in the snow. "You are leaving the village—my father can't be the keeper for your dead anymore. You will have to be your own."

"Oh," he says. I don't know what the sound means. He looks at the bracelet, as if he's studying it, and I'm worried that my words weren't right, that I'll have to find another way to tell him. But he looks at me again, and he smiles.

"Thank you," he says. His smile is so sad and it makes me think of my father, but he pulls the bracelet on, tucks it under the cloth around his wrist, next to the first one I gave him.

He stays still and lets me push his head covering back. I lean down and kiss his ear, the one I bit. I can see where my teeth cut him and I feel ashamed. "Soul of your companion preserve you," I say. Our most sacred blessing.

He nods, reaches up and tugs my ear, then pulls his head covering back on.

I watch as he turns and walks to the metal and his people. The maw closes around him, and the metal thing makes noise and fire and rises into the air. I watch it until long after it has disappeared, far, far up into the sky.

Then I go to find my father.


End file.
